Archive for the ‘humor’ Category

Friday, December 17th, 2010

Today Google released its Books Ngram Viewer, a remarkable statistical snapshot of the books in Google. The New York Times did an nice piece on it.

So I went to work on it. My guess was that, like much else with Google books, the data was ratty. It didn’t have to look far. At first glance this chart appears to show that “fuck” had a remarkable early history—being more popular in 1725 than even today! (link)

Yes, Google can’t tell between an f and an ſ, the “s without a bar” more properly known as a long, descending or medial s. To the disappointment of many, Shakespeare wrote “suck’d.” The effect pops up all over. Here’s a graph of “crimſon” vs. “crimson.” If nothing else we can now follow the demise of the ſ with precision.

There’s no question this is a cool tool. But given Google’s grand ambitions and how common s is in English, it’s a pretty startling lapse.

I’m disappointed in the minimalist “damsels in distress.” As a boy with a good collection of Conan novels, I feel that fantasy covers are all about occasions to show impossibly good-looking women in clothing of dubious practicality. I’m betting, if tallied, chainmail brassieres might well beat out glowy magic.

Sunday, November 23rd, 2008

A recent dust-up on AUTOCAT revolved around a librarian tour to Cuba for the “Havana Book Fair.” This “fully escorted” tour involved the opportunity to “get an unprecedented look into issues of freedom of expression directly from Cuban intellectuals, writers, librarians, publishers and curators,” with a rum-and-coke event at a local Committee for the Defense of the Revolution, who, besides keeping files on everyone in the neighborhood, “ensure[s] that detailed electoral information is provided on all candidates, and every vote diligently counted.”*

As you may guess, a number of posters (myself included) criticized the post. Others objected to our criticism, and a small-bore kerfuffle ensued.

“… before this detours into a “Cuba $x Foreign relations $z United States” (and vice-versa) discussion, please remember that Autocat is primarily a discussion group for cataloging, authority work, etc.”

Off-list, I suggested to someone that we could continue the argue entirely in LCSH, suggesting the (invalid) heading:

Cuba, Communist — Propaganda — Aimed at librarians!

Which was met with the (also invalid):

United States — Imperialistic policies — Social aspects

Touché.

That got me thinking, if LCSH is a language (of sorts), how good is it for that most important role of languages—conveying insults?

The answer is—just great! Although LCSH lacks the term “jerk” or “dumbass” (except “Dumbasses (music group)”), it is still a rich field for insult, innuendo and invective. Consider, for example, hurling the following at an opponent:

Donkeys — GenealogyDill weed — Specimen

Sometimes the main heading themselves provide good insults, for example, to accuse someone of verbal diarrhea one need only employ:

*The passage goes on to note, that, “Voting booth and ballot integrity” in this one-party state is “entrusted to primary level students on voting days.” What a neat solution!**Apparently this heading is only supposed to be used on the Anal people, of Southeast Manipur. Pity.